Spending two months illustrating the fictitious world of a cat belonging to Susan Boyle isn’t how most graduates picture their career taking off. but as artist Anastasia Catris tells Kirstie McCrum, it’s been a dream come true

FOR many people, work experience can be a tedious trawl of photocopying and making tea.

But Anastasia Catris’ placement landed her with something entirely different – a job with a major publisher drawing a comic about the adventures of Susan Boyle’s evil cat!

That is the idea behind a new book by illustrator Anastasia Catris.

In the pages of SuBo’s Cat: The Imaginings of Susan Boyle’s Pampered Pussy, the Britain’s Got Talent star is revealed as the victim of a ruthlessly ambitious cat who doesn’t care how hard she has to push the singer to get what she wants.

Anastasia, 24, was on work experience at publishers Harper Collins in London when the idea of the book came up.

“My boss Anna Valentine wanted to do a comedy book to do with Susan Boyle, because at the time she was very popular. We came up with this idea because she’s so cat obsessed. She actually said hello to her cat Pebbles on television,” Anastasia said.

She says that the whole story is an affectionate look at events and there’s no malice intended.

“We didn’t want to be mean to Susan Boyle because she’s a lovely lady. We just wanted something that took the mick out of the whole process.

“So we created Pebbles, this evil Machiavellian ‘pushy mum’ character who pushes Susan Boyle to get her success so that the cat can get all of the glory.”

In the book, the cat is at the root of all of Susan Boyle’s troubles, sabotaging the other acts and flirting with Simon Cowell to get points.

“It’s a funny little character who we had a lot of fun with, coming up with ideas as to what she would do to make Susan Boyle a success,” she says.

Anastasia is thrilled to be a part of the book, and can’t quite believe what has happened.

Originally from Roath, Cardiff, Anastasia was a keen artist, and despite studying English at university, went on to study cartoons at a college in New Jersey, USA, where she was taught by artists working on The X Men and Batman.

On her return from America, Anastasia went to Harper Collins for a week’s work experience, but far from photocopying and making coffee she found herself helping on the SuBo project.

“Anna asked me to draw a couple of sketches of what the cat might look like, so we researched what Susan Boyle’s actual cat Pebbles looks like, and what sort of popular cat books are out there at the moment,” she says.

When Anna saw how quickly Anastasia could draw the cat, she asked her to come up with a couple of pages.

“They took my drawings to the pitch meeting, to the head of Harper Collins. I was extremely nervous, because I didn’t think anything was going to come of it, but I just wanted them to like my pictures.

“Next thing I know, they’re coming out of the pitch meeting and Anna says, ‘Well, we got the book’. I said, ‘Congratulations, I hope you find a good illustrator’, and she said, ‘We want you to illustrate it’.”

Having been on her work experience for three weeks, Anastasia had to quit her bar job and move back into the family home near Caerphilly to start drawing. She says it was a hectic time.

“I had a couple of months to draw 112 pages of an evil cat playing around with Susan Boyle. I had all sorts of extra characters.

“Cheryl Cole’s in there, Ozzy Osbourne, Simon Cowell, all the judges, a couple of the characters from the audition stages who were very fun to draw. Whirlwind is the only way to describe it, it all happened so quickly,” she says.

The whirlwind wasn’t quite over for Anastasia. An editorial assistant left Harper Collins in London and the office, so impressed by her work experience placement, called to offer Anastasia the job while she was still drawing SuBo’s Cat.

“I was obviously going to take it, but suddenly I had this nine to five schedule and I had to get home every night to draw as well. It became quite stressful quite quickly, but they were so understanding about it.

“I was going to work every day and they were talking me through the book, so I got a really well rounded view of it all. It was very fun, an amazing experience.”

SuBo’s Cat:The Imaginings of Susan Boyle’s Pampered Pussy is out on October 14, published by Harper Collins